Wins for Ask A Patient and GoodRx at the Webby Awards

A website that allows patients to rate the drugs they are taking and a price-based medicine search engine have won the top two awards in the 2012 Webby Awards' pharma category.

Ask A Patient, which won the Pharmaceuticals Webby Award, was set up in 2000 and now has a database of more than 4,000 drugs, with work underway to include biological drugs such as vaccines and gene therapy products.

The winner of the People's Voice award, GoodRx, is a US service that allows consumers to search local pharmacy prices for generic, or cheaper branded, drugs.

“Many big brand-name drugs (such as Lipitor) have gone or will soon go generic. When brand-name drugs go generic, their price rapidly decreases from potentially hundreds of dollars to as little as $4.

"Consumers need to be aware of when the drugs they take are going generic so that they can switch to the least expensive option or take advantage of discounts and price changes,” the site says.

Winners in the Webbys' health category were Medify, which compiles medical research results for the public, sorted by condition, drug and institution, and Lance Armstrong's Live Strong (People's Voice).

Now in their 16th year, the Webbys feature over 100 categories and this year received nearly 10,000 entries from over 60 countries worldwide.

The Webby Award winners are selected by a judging panel that includes Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and musician David Bowie. For the website awards the panel bases its decisions on excellence in content, structure, navigation, visual design, functionality, interactivity and overall experience.

Meanwhile, the People's Voice awards are the result of an online vote, which this year attracted nearly 1.5m votes from over 200 countries.